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In a recent opinion, the Ninth Circuit held that selective enforcement claims in reverse stash-house sting operations are not subject to the nearly impossible-to-surmount discovery standard set forth in United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 457 (1996). SeeUnited States v. Sellers, 16-50061 (9th Cir. 2018), opinion available here.

Chief Federal Public Defender Jon Sands, who posts on the excellent Ninth Circuit Blog, has this summary:

In US v. Sellers, No. 16-50061 (10-15-18) (Nguyen w/Simon; Nguyen concurring; Graber dissenting), the panel majority held that in stash house reverse-sting cases, claims of selective enforcement are governed by a less rigorous standard than that applied to claims of selective prosecution under US v. Armstrong, 517 US 456 (1996). The 9th emphasizes the difference between selective prosecution and selective enforcement (9). The 9th stresses that the police do not enjoy the enforcement presumption of prosecutors and …

Last week, in United States v. Washington, the Third Circuit held that selective enforcement claims against law enforcement officers are not subject to the insurmountable discovery standard that has long thwarted selective prosecution claims. This opinion is the product of a nationwide effort to challenge the racially selective use of fictitious stash house stings.

These stings permit the government to script its enforcement practices to trigger harsh mandatory minimums. Troublingly, Columbia Law School professor Jeffrey Fagan has found powerful evidence that the government selectively targets people of color for these sting operations. As we have previouslywritten, the University of Chicago Law School’s Federal Criminal Justice Clinic (FCJC) is working with attorneys nationwide to challenge this discriminatory practice.

With Washington, these attorneys scored an important victory. Professor Alison Siegler, Director of FCJC, offers this writeup:

Earlier this week, the Chicago Tribune ran a piece on the ND IL litigation challenging the disparate racial impact in stash house sting cases. We blogged here about the report by Columbia Professor Jeffrey Fagan. You can access Professor Fagan’s report, and other filings in the litigation, here.

If you have a case involving a stash house sting, please let us know. We are trying to keep track of their use here, including their disparate racial impact.

This short decision disposes of a sufficiency claim that has not yet arisen in this Circuit relating to “stash house” prosecutions under 21 U.S.C. § 856(a)(2).

Wilson shared two apartments with a drug dealer – the tools of his trade were in open view all over the place. She argued that the evidence was legally insufficient because the government did not prove that she herself intended that the premises would be used for an unlawful purpose.

The Circuit made short work of this. The phrase “for the purpose” in § 856(a)(2) refers to the purpose of the person who is permitted to engage in drug activity in the premise, and not she who permits him. By contrast, § 856 (a)(1) makes it a crime for the person controlling the premises to have …